You know, the more I play this-- and I'm enjoying it, by the way-- the more it seems to me that the story is utter crap. Events just happen with little or no justification and seem just like setups for the awesome cutscenes. Like

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The arena fight in Ferox? Oh, hi, we just met but u fight for me for my political position?

Also so far, the character conversations haven't been nearly as interesting as anything I've seen in other games with skits. This game gets a bit of a pass, I suppose, since there's so many of them, but at least up to A rank I haven't really felt like I've read anything... interesting, between some of my characters. As a gameplay mechanic they're great and give me SOMETHING to personify the people, but I have to say once I got over the initial awesomeness of the presentation, I feel like I'm reading a Saturday-morning cartoon.

Yeah, it's definitely a game you play more for the gameplay than anything else, though the character interactions are engaging enough I guess. Sounds to me like some of the other FE games are better to go to if story's a big deal.

Path of Radiance has probably the best story of a Fire Emblem, and good gameplay too.

This game is like a mix of all the best bits from past Fire Emblem games, but really support conversations are just there to make you get a little bit attached to them so you care if they die. Playing Shadow Dragon or Radiant Dawn was really hard for me without the support conversations. Even if they are just generic little scenes, I welcome them compared to nothing.

For the sake of avoiding spoiling the game I'm going to wrap the rest of this post in code tags.

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To me, the Jugdral games were the best story wise (where one game has you on the losing team for the majority of the game plus the capture mechanic made for more unique situations than other game in the series; Radiant Dawn also tries to have this but bails too quickly on them to focus on the peeps from the last game), although the Emblem Saga games were probably even better provided they ever get finished (which will probably never happen considering the clusterfuck the Emblem Saga games were).

I was hoping that my initial impressions with the plot were more due to the finer points getting lost in translation rather than the actual strength of the plot but I was wrong. The game did have some points I wasn't able to pick up on like Plegia's aggression stemming from Chrom's father's shenanigans, but like many other things with the plot, the game only told and did not show. And yes, the game has a decidedly more 'anime' (for lack of a better term) plot than with other games (well, closer to 6 and 8's plot compared to the others) but the game's power of friendship theme was just as disappointing as I feared. I think though the two biggest problems with this game's plot stems from a) the lack of a decent support cast (discounting the major antagonists i.e. Gangrel, Walhart, Validar, Aversa as well as peeps like Emelina, Flavia, and Basilio, who do you have left? A Ferox border guard? A captain of the local Pegasus Knight wing? Walhart's goons? Say'ri and her brother? Tiki? Virion even?), and b) the fact that, while the game has a broad scope (two whole continents instead of one or part of one), it was seriously lacking in the details (only four nations, which is less than even Magvel had in Sacred Stones).

As for the supports, my problem with them stems from the fact that they're mostly there for the lovers/breeding/eugenics purposes with very few options for those who aren't looking to get into somebody else's (fugly) pants. And while some of them are pretty good a number of them are just "Here's my quirk!" "Why that quirk doesn't really sit well with my quirk." "But when I put my quirk together with your quirk, we make for a quirky pair." "That's so quirky I might just make our quirky pairing permanent. Marry me!".

Now granted, there's more to come from the DLC, but just with the base game's plot and characters, there's quite a bit left to be desired. And this is unfortunate since it means that you have to effectively pay double to get the full monty. But at least the core gameplay is solid enough to make the base game feel like a complete game.

Finished Chapter 7. It took me 7 times to do it, and 3 of those 7 times I got down to 1 or 2 guys and made an oversight that killed one of my dudes. Needless to say, I cursed. A lot. Hard Classic is making me realize that I may have an anger issues.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking and here are my current support plans:

Finished Chapter 7. It took me 7 times to do it, and 3 of those 7 times I got down to 1 or 2 guys and made an oversight that killed one of my dudes. Needless to say, I cursed. A lot. Hard Classic is making me realize that I may have an anger issues.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking and here are my current support plans:

Chrom- SumiaLissa- HenryLoivia- DonnelMaribelle- RickenSully- FredrickCordellia- KellamCherche- VirionAvatar- Lucina(I really hope where the Morgan from this pairing comes from gets some explanation at some point)Panne- StahlMiriel- Vaike(because I just don't care about either)Tharja- Lon'quNowi- Gregor

A lot of these were just sort of "whatever" choices as I decided midway through my playthrough to not get all supports so I just wanted to get the children paralogues opened up quickly so I could get my first playthough finished. Somewhat dreading my second and third playthroughs atm. Second one will be for getting all female avatar conversations and third will be for getting all supports....pretty much period. The gods of grinding had better be smiling upon me when I get to my third playthough. x_x Not going to get to starting those until nearly all of the Spotpass stuff is out though.

Also so far, the character conversations haven't been nearly as interesting as anything I've seen in other games with skits. This game gets a bit of a pass, I suppose, since there's so many of them, but at least up to A rank I haven't really felt like I've read anything... interesting, between some of my characters. As a gameplay mechanic they're great and give me SOMETHING to personify the people, but I have to say once I got over the initial awesomeness of the presentation, I feel like I'm reading a Saturday-morning cartoon.

Eh some of them are actually interesting, such as Lon'qu and Thraja where you finally learn why Lon'qu has a "phobia" of women. You just have some which are just there for the purpose of being there(such as anything involving Miriel). Also I seem to recall that one of the Fire Emblems had support conversations worse than these.....I want to say it was Radiant Dawn where most of them were basically just generic conversations, but I can't recall for sure.

Finished Chapter 7. It took me 7 times to do it, and 3 of those 7 times I got down to 1 or 2 guys and made an oversight that killed one of my dudes. Needless to say, I cursed. A lot. Hard Classic is making me realize that I may have an anger issues.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking and here are my current support plans:

Yeah, I think I'm done with this game. Chapter 6, the story is absolute ridiculous nonsense. The dialogue sucks and is full of incredibly awkward jokes that I can only assume are the fault of the translator, and the character interactions are incredibly shallow and meaningless. "ARE YOU SHOCKED BY MY BEAUTY?" "NO BUT YOUR SHIRT IS WRINKLED PLEASE FIX IT". Everyone is an anime trope, and not even a well-done anime trope (TALES OF THE ABYSS WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOU, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS). I can't give a shit about the combat because I don't give a crap about any of the fifty million characters the game keeps throwing at me. Pretty cutscenes, though.

Yeah, I think I'm done with this game. Chapter 6, the story is absolute ridiculous nonsense. The dialogue sucks and is full of incredibly awkward jokes that I can only assume are the fault of the translator, and the character interactions are incredibly shallow and meaningless. "ARE YOU SHOCKED BY MY BEAUTY?" "NO BUT YOUR SHIRT IS WRINKLED PLEASE FIX IT". Everyone is an anime trope, and not even a well-done anime trope (TALES OF THE ABYSS WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOU, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS). I can't give a shit about the combat because I don't give a crap about any of the fifty million characters the game keeps throwing at me. Pretty cutscenes, though.

I'm having a difficult time with it holding my interest as well, but I was placing the blame on Ni No Kuni-LoL

Oddly enough, I typically eat up cliche anime stuff.... but the "lather rinse repeat" gameplay here is sort of getting to me.... that and I feel very "disconnected" from the mechanics here.... I still don't really grasp a lot of stuff having not ever played a fire emblem.... class advancing, pairing selection et cetera...... I just don't get it (though I imagine as I delve a little deeper it will make more sense or become more thoroughly explained.... I hope). Gotta say though, I love the permadeath! It does force me to pay closer attention and care A LOT more than I would typically... in fact I could easily see me giving up out of boredom if not for classic mode. Additionally I imagine I would be fostering a great deal more enjoyment out of the DLC maps and summoning all these other units to my map if I actually had played other FE's.... I'm grateful none-the-less though... thanks to street pass and these FE historical units my team seems to be trumping the chapter battles without much difficulty or frustration (currently on chapter 8, my avatar is level 21.... group with stahl in battle = untouchable unit!)

In truth, I don't find this to be a bad title by any means.... but I'm certainly not finding it to be as stellar as I expected given the hype.... I still have to reserve judgement until I really see how all this "pairing up" and "having kids" stuff pans out....